Short Runs & Season Closures Don't Mean The End, Just The Beginning of Something Else

That's the situation facing many people here in my part of Alaska. I imagine that many gear fishermen are out there heaving lures into the high and turbid waters and some are probably hauling out some Sockeye to boot. Me, I'm a fly fisherman who uses quiet little salmon flies to catch his fish and these conditions are not conducive to my having great success. With that reality in mind we decided to do some traveling, this was early July 2012. The trip started with a drive along Turnagain Arm of the Inlet and then taking the tunnel to Whittier Alaska where we had reservations on the ferry to Valdez.

We had a little time to use while at Whittier ad so I took some pictures. below is a small commercial fishing boat heading out into Prince William Sound.

And here just a shot of a cove where a creek empties into the Sound.

I've been on plenty of ferry rides over the years beginning with trips to Newfoundland back in the 80's and many times the weather at sea has been less than enjoyable. This trip started out with a bad forecast but you can't wait for good weather here if you want to do something so we went. As you can see the forecast was off by just a bit. Of all my rides this was the first one that I spent hours at a time out on deck taking pictures.

I had the whole camera bag along so I was able to pick and choose lens for various situations along the 6 3/4 hour trip.

I shot about 200 exposures along the way and they are all beautiful pictures but if I were to keep posting them they will begin to look alike so I'll move to the highlights. I kept a 10 - 20 MM Sigma and the 28 - 300 MM Tamron out on the deck with me with a B&W polarizer on each so I was ready to bring out the color in the shots.

Right about the time I thought I was getting too many beautiful shoreline photos there were some Humpback Whales off the port bow. As luck had it I already had the telephoto lens mounted and as the ship approached I was ready to shoot.

There are more of the Whales but like the landscapes they start to look alike so I'll keep things moving. The area where the Humpbacks were at (there were 5 all together) was on the fringe of an ice berg field created by calving glaciers. Some of the bergs were substantial and the ship had to thread its way through.

I'll pick up the ice field and morning on page 2 because the site limits text and images on entries............... To continue reading just go to Page 2 of Short Runs, there are many good pictures there. This is a 4 page entry because of all the pictures.

Comments

If I'm right the tunnel is the longest in North America, I don't know about the rest of the world. It is approximately 2 1/2 miles long. It's pretty cool, I've been through a lot of tunnels while traveling 46 states and 9 Provinces. I lived in Portsmouth VA. for a couple years and tunnels were a way of life. This is however a rough cut job when compared to something like the New (1990 / 91) Monitor Merrimac tunnel in VA.